The Halo eBook

Driven beyond her own control by his tone, she caught
his arm and pleaded with him, her voice harsh and
broken, and she could not stop, although she saw that
she was, besides annoying him, injuring herself in
his eyes.

“Please—­Brigit——­”

“Then tell me that you love me. You can’t
have stopped—­it is only a week since the
wedding—­I—­can’t bear this——­”

But her mistaken line of conduct brought its inevitable
punishment. “This is—­absurd,”
he said coldly, “and—­undignified.
I told you at Falaise that I was ashamed of myself
for being jealous of my son. It was monstrous
and hideous. I think I have been not quite in
my right mind for some time. But I have a strong
will and can force myself to anything——­”

“And you are forcing yourself to kill your love
for me——­”

“No. I am trying to learn to love you as
a—­a daughter, and I am beginning to succeed.
But if you insist in making scenes like this——­”
He broke off and gave his shoulders an expressive shrug.
“It is—­not womanly.”

Then, breaking the yellow rose from the bush, he drew
its stem through his button-hole and strolled leisurely
away, whistling under his breath.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

For two days Brigit Mead remained in her room, refusing
to see anyone. Tommy, who had reached the period
when convalescents sleep most of the time, was told
that she was resting, and that he must be very good
and eat a great deal, with a view to surprising her
by his progress when she reappeared.

But the girl was not resting.

Up and down the two rooms she paced, day and night,
her face set, her hands clenched, talking aloud to
herself sometimes, sometimes silent, always thinking,
thinking, thinking of Joyselle.

Had he ceased to love her, or was it merely a pose,
or—­ten thousand theories occurred to her,
to drive her perilously near madness in her solitude.
Things he had done, words he had said, characteristics
she had observed in him, all these things flashed
into her mind, upsetting and confirming each and every
theory with an utter lack of logic, but with pitiless
conclusiveness.

And the longer she thought the more hopeless things
grew. Theo himself she dismissed with furious
impatience; his letters remained unopened, an affectionate
wire of congratulation on Tommy’s improvement
she did not answer. He and everyone else were
swept aside by the flood of emotional analysis regarding
Joyselle that, in its headlong course, threatened to
carry her reason with it.

“If I had been married,” she thought over
and over again with cruel shrewdness, “things—­would
have been different, and then he could not
have escaped.”

She wrote to Joyselle long letters full of incoherent
self-accusations, and made appeals for pity, but she
knew that he would not answer her, and so burned the
letters.

She could not eat; did not even try, and the little
sleep she got from sheer exhaustion, after tramping
up and down for hours, was heavy and unrestful.
Lady Kingsmead came to her door once or twice, but
was not allowed to enter, and went away unprotesting.
And then, the third morning, Dr. Long insisted on
seeing her.